Page 89 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

“Good,” I said, pulling back from him with a grin on my face. I was ridiculously happy we had another date. “I didn’t want to leave before telling you where I was. I didn’t want you getting ideas. After all, you are an overthinker.”

He chuckled and shook his head.

“You are,” I insisted. “So, there you have it. I’ll leave you to this Jake person now. He better be worth it.”

His fingers dug deeper into the soft spot above my hip. Like a kitten who still wanted to play, he held onto me, then smiled and reluctantly released me. “Saturday.”

“Saturday.” It was a promise. And I sealed that promise with another kiss that made my heart beat faster than any kiss had managed to in years.

Noah’s gentle moan met mine and I pinned him harder against the door. Every part of me tingled with excitement as if I hadn’t done this with another person a million other times. I shivered with a desperate desire to hold him a moment longer. It was so strong and sudden that I couldn’t even help but grin while kissing him.

He never moved. He never protested. Instead, his hands moved from the sides of my ribcage to the top of my chest. He kissed me back just as intently, the sweet flavor of his lips accented by the awkward reservation that battled his eagerness. The two clashed and made him such a unique boy to kiss that I found my heart jittered more, not less, as time went on.

The back of Noah’s head faintly bumped against the door. My hands searched his body, feeling every inch of him until I cupped his butt and squeezed him so hard that he moaned over my lips.

Suddenly, the door flew open and we nearly tumbled into his room, separating in the leap. Noah cleared his throat and heat flushed my face as we straightened ourselves. There, an equally horrified Jake stared between us. “Sorry, I thought…you knocked.”

Noah murmured something about everything being fine, his voice rising into a squeal by the end of the sentence, and I bit my lip against bursting into laughter. “I’ll see you later,” I said and turned on my heels.

“Okay.” It was a whisper so drenched in the expectation that I wanted to take him right away. But I couldn’t. He was busy being a genius and all that. And I needed to get ready for a surprise trip to Chicago.

But, life kicked in, and my heart kept tripping at every thought of the next weekend. The things I wished to do to him. The things I wanted him to experience. I was more inspired than ever before. That was probably why this week began to drag as soon as I was away from Noah.

The trip seemed longer than it was possible, according to the rules of physics that governed the passage of time. And once there, the only good thing I could hold onto was hockey. We played a mean game for a good cause, filling the arena to its maximum capacity, and scoring a blazing victory on our first night there. The spirits were high among us.

After we returned to our hotel rooms, I pulled out my phone and began a text that got away from me. By the time I typed out the impressions of the night, I realized it was a mile long. Pathetic, something told me, so I erased the wall of text and substituted it with a short and sweet one.

Me: Victory is ours.

Noah’s reply came a few excruciating minutes later. I’d already begun to believe he had no idea what I was talking about. After all, he didn’t exactly need to pay attention to the things I was doing outside our tutoring sessions.

Noah: Celebrating tonight?

Noah: I mean, you don’t have to tell me.

Noah: I don’t mean, you know, ‘celebrating’ but like, are you going out for drinks?

Noah: Fuck. Ignore me. Long day.

Me: You’re seriously overthinking this. And for what it’s worth, I’m in a bathrobe on my bed, waiting for room service and calling it early tonight.

Avery was humming to himself in the bathroom while I grinned at my phone and waited for Noah’s reply. Just then, Avery came out of the bathroom in a cloud of cologne. “What the hell?” he asked, his surprise limited to the slightest quirk of his eyebrows.

“What?” I asked, glancing at my phone. I found nothing there, then put it on the nightstand.

“I thought we were going out, dude,” Avery said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “We’re away. It’s what we do.”

He was right. Whenever we’d been at away games — and especially when we were the victors — Avery and I would hit the town the way only two best wingmen and friends would. “Ah, I’m kinda tired,” I said, reaching for my phone and checking if there were notifications. There were none.

“Right,” Avery said. Something about his tone told me he didn’t buy it. It was just that Avery’s normal and sarcastic voices were so alike that you could never be totally sure.

I snorted. “We’ve been in Chicago a dozen times, dude. You’re not gonna get lost.”

“No, but I thought we were going out together,” Avery said, giving a little shrug.

I cocked my head to the side. Was he doing an…emotion? I didn’t know how to deal with one if he was. “Look at it this way. Without me in the picture, you’re gonna be the most desirable bachelor there.”

Avery’s skeptical look tickled me. “You only ever had more luck, buddy.” His lips trembled in the corners like he was about to smile. “Come on. Spill the truth. What’s keeping you here?”